New understanding can aid commercial and recreational fisheries management.
A new electronic tagging study of 100 Potomac River striped bass sheds light on rockfish migration in Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Coast. University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science researchers found that when rockfish reach 32 inches in length they leave Chesapeake Bay and become ocean migrators. Small fish that stayed in the Bay had higher mortality rates than those that undertook ocean migrations.
“Knowing the size at which they leave, we can do improved management that is tailored better to commercial and recreational fishing sectors those related to catch and size limits,” said study author and Professor Dave Secor of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. “It allows us to bring different parts of the fishery into an assessment model to evaluate stock health and test how effective regulations will be.”
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Image via University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
